Anthony Eisen and Nick Molnar have a fresh growth challenge on their hands. David Rowe

Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (the number the market is looking at, given net profit is dragged down by non-cash items associated with the growth of the still-young firm) rose 468 per cent to $33.8 million, with underlying sales processed through its system rising 290 per cent to $2.18 billion.

The result would also appear to answer some of the questions around the Afterpay model.

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Net transaction losses (the Afterpay version of bad debts) actually fell across the year from 0.6 per cent of underlying sales to 0.4 per cent, while net transaction margin ticked up from 2.5 per cent of underlying sales to 2.6 per cent.

There was no guidance as such, but some very good signs out of the group's nascent US operation. Over 800 retailers have been signed up so far, with over 400 transacting on the platform. Underlying sales were $12 million in June and then jumped to $20 million in July. The peak US retail season, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, lies ahead.

Unique move

But the surprise was the move into Britain, and the decision to raise $108 million via a placement to institutional and sophisticated investors to fund its international push.

The British push is somewhat unique. Afterpay will buy the guts of a buy-now-pay-later business called ClearPay, but it does not want that firm's technology. Instead, this is about reducing the risk of entering a new market, and speeding up the process.

Afterpay gets its foot on an established operation that is up and running and has relationships with retailers and other key third parties. Perhaps most importantly, it gets a team of people already operating in functional roles and who understand the regulations, customers, standards and culture of the British market.

But management is insistent that the Afterpay brand and systems will be plugged into this moving vehicle and propel it forward – and this process will take some months. It won't be a case of Afterpay trying to adapt the ClearPay platform such that it could start offering its product tomorrow.

This strategy of finding a partner or a platform to smooth its path into a new market has been used in the US and New Zealand.

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But the British move does raise a question that investors will need to get comfortable with: just how much growth can Afterpay's people, structure and systems actually cope with?

The Afterpay camp insists it has bulked up appropriately to push globally.

In addition to co-founders Anthony Eisen and Nick Molnar (who is managing director and is spearheading the US push) the group has in the last 12 months also brought in new chief financial officer Luke Bortoli, former UBS executive Jon Donoghue as its chief technology officer, and high-profile head of risk Xin Ge, who was a former head of risk management at Uber.

And co-founder and executive chairman Eisen was insistent on a call to investors on Thursday morning that Afterpay would not take its eye of the ball in the US, or its home market.

"We see this as being a synergistic entry [into Britain] but in no way taking our resolute focus off the core activities in the US market, in Australia and in New Zealand," he said.

The idea of a fast-growth start-up trying to crack two markets at the same time will ring alarm bells for many investors with a keen sense of history. Too much growth too fast is poison for start-ups

But to not enter these markets is a risk too.

Afterpay says retailers overseas are asking for its product and customers are clearly engaged. To not to answer that call could see interest fade, or a canny competitor come in and replicate the Afterpay model – which, to the company's credit, is fairly simple and transparent.

Having pushed the value of Afterpay into the stratosphere, investors will need to carefully know how much expansion is too much, and watch for any signs of growing pains over the next 12 months.